This is a really fun collection of ten technologies currently in RD The Weinersmiths combine fact and humor to create a book that s so informative and silly you ll want to read it again and again Zach Weinersmith is the creator of Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, a popular geek webcomic great for fans of XKCD His wife, Dr Kelly Weinersmith, is an accomplished scientist whose work has been featured through many popular science venues They worked together to explain complicated technology and science in such a way that those who last took a science class in high school can understand what they re talking about Their combined wit and self deprecating humor make the writing exciting while Zach s cartoons help break up all the heavy concepts with a good laugh Personally, I find that if I m laughing while learning, the concepts stick with me better For anyone who enjoys books like WHAT IF and science podcasts, this will be an excellent book to add to your shelf This is a great informative book about what technologies are being researched and which ones might come out soonish I read this book thanks to an ARC I received You promised me Mars colonies, and all I got was all of human knowledge indexed and available to everyone on Earth for freeRemember watching Back to the Future and thinking we d have hoverboards and self tying shoes by now Does it ever frustrate you that technology doesn t progress FASTER than what it does Like, What the heck are those scientists doing They can t grow us new bodies yet What s the big hold up, this one is falling apart I love to read technology books and they re usually quite optimistic that all these new devices and medical procedures, etc will be available in the very near future I am often left wondering, If we already have experimental versions of these technologies, why won t they be available for several years The books make it seem so simple, and I wonder why it s not as simple for those scientists creating these technologies.In Soonish, wife and husband team Kelly and Zach Weinersmith tell us exactly WHY They discuss 10 emerging technologies, explaining what they are, what we can do with them so far, and why they don t yet do everything they theoretically can should Sure, you might think that it s oh so easy to build a space lift that will transport you from the ground to the international space station Well, actually, if that s what you re thinking, you re wrong You probably should read this book to see why it s not quite as simple as you think it is The Weinersmiths delve into such areas as brain upgrades, programmable matter, mining on asteroids, bioprinting new organs, and many other interesting topics Whilst I didn t learn of any technologies I hadn t previously known about, this book was still informative and a lot of fun The authors are incredibly witty and I often found myself laughing If you like comics, there are several interspersed within the chapters normally comics aren t my thing, but they somehow made this book even better If you like technology, and you like to learn, and you like to laugh whilst you re learning, this is the book for you This book delves into technological realms that the authors feel could see gigantic leaps in our access to and use of in the future This novel was written by husband and wife pair, the former, a cartoonist and the latter, a noted Rice University Researcher They interviewed many scientists across various fields of study to learn about up and coming technologies They start each segment by explaining where we are with a certain technology, then discuss where research is heading, what the future could be like, potential advantages, concerns and pitfalls Interspersed within this writing are many nerdy scientific jokes and cartoons to help lighten the reading The humor is the kind you would expect from scientists, not the laugh out loud kind That said, I did appreciate the diversion.The ten areas explored in the book are 1 Cheap Access to Space, 2 Asteroid Mining, 3 Fusion Power, 4 Programmable Matter, 5 Robotic Construction, 6 Augmented Reality, 7 Synthetic Biology, 8 Precision Medicine, 9 Bioprinting and 10 Brain Computer Interfaces There were some chapters, especially the medical ones, where I found I knew much of the content, but still the future applications were quite interesting Other chapters were completely new to me and I was grateful to this book for enlightening me Depending on your background, you may find the presentation of information simplistic or you may find it mind blowing For the average lay person without a scientific background, this book is a wonderful introduction to emerging technologies and what we might expect in the future I also found myself envisioning ideas for futuristic science fiction novels while reading this There is much food for thought here.I like that the authors are bringing much of what is currently exciting about science and technology to greater attention in a very readable format I recommend this to anyone who is interested in learning about the topics mentioned above I am also grateful to the Book Riot 2017 Read Harder Challenge for pushing me to read harder and choose a book in this category I m glad I did Imagine you are at a dinner party and you meet a new person, let s call him Bob Now you quickly realise that Bob is super intelligent, and you start having the most interesting conversations The problem is Bob spits when he talks Its highly annoying and unhygienic and you end up cutting the chat short.Reading this book was something like that The content is highly interesting, but the way it was told was off putting.If you can ignored the juvenile humour and the cringe worthy cartoons what you are left with is speculative science Looking at emerging science technology and how it could be applied in future Humor is always a tricky thing as not everyone things the same things are funny and there are obviously readers who loved this, but for me it was a huge disappointment. SoonishTen Emerging Technologies That Will Improve and or Ruin Everythingby Dr Kelly Weinersmith Zach WeinersmithThis is a book I requested from NetGalley and the review is voluntary.This book is an informative and fun book to read Not only does it give the reader ideas for what might be coming along in the future and what that might mean for mankind good or bad but it is done in a very humorous way It sure got a few chuckles and giggles out of me That s the best way to read science Make it fun I would definitely recommend this to anyone A fun coffee table book, bathroom reading book, a book for that person who has everything Great job
If you re a citizen of the internet, you ve seen Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal Trust me, you have If you think you haven t, go google Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, and then be like, Oh yeah, that, and then come back to this review.So, Zach and Kelly wrote a book.Pals, it s fantastic So, it s funny You were probably expecting that.So, it s got comics You were probably expecting that.What you might not have been expecting was one of the most thoroughly researched, best explained, unbiased looks at the future of technology and how it will change our world and ourselves And that, actually, is the majority of what you get in Soonish It s deeply insightful, very thorough, and incredibly easy to understand, even if you have absolutely and I mean absolutely no background in any of the hugely daunting topics, from robotics to bioethics, presented.Also it s funny and there are comics. Ok, so here s the thing I really LOVE science Granted, I m not the greatest at maths, but I love biology as well as chemistry and at least am really into what physics means lol Which might be the reason why I also love non fiction books as much as any others if they are done right Moreover, I ve been a fan of comics and the age old what if question Ergo, a book combining that sounded great Problem was, it didn t work 100%.I had never heard of the authors before but checked out some of Zach Weinersmith s comics after starting to read this book I don t mind his simplistic way of drawing but quite a number of panels just failed to make me laugh And unfortunately I had the same problem when reading this book.It is clear that the authors have done their research and that Kelly Weinersmith especially knows her science and is very passionate about it Consequently, the book has some interesting albeit sometimes already outdated information on all kinds of inventions from space elevators and reusable rockets to 3D organ printing and deep space exploration.I really like how they structured the book to give the reader a little bit of background to understand each topic incl some interesting history lessons , then explain where we are currently, before delving into what could be incl potential problems.Sadly, despite the slight humour, the comics and despite me not even minding that some of the science was outdated already technology especially is such a fast evolving field that it s impossible not to fall behind when writing a book , the book wasn t as good as I had hoped Still, it is well written and one of those books that could enthuse some readers enough so that they check up on the topics mentioned here and if that is the case, it s done its job For me, personally, it was a light refresher course on some things and an appetizer on others. This was such an interesting book, I have to admit that some of the information is a little bit too complex for the average person but the humor imbedded into the book helps the reader to process all the information a little better There were some amazing ideas explored in the book such as a elevator to an asteroid to make space exploration cheaper, meteor mining and advances in medicine , but there were some crazy ones that seemed a little to farfetched such as mirror humans , but overall this is a very solid book that presents very heavy information in a simplistic format. Q Fortunately, predicting the future is pretty easy People do it all the time Getting your prediction right is a bit harder, but honestly, does anyone really care c Q There was a study in 2011 called Are Talking Heads Blowing Hot Air, in which the predictive abilities of twenty six pundits were assessed Predictive powers ranged from mostly right to usually wrong For most people, the pleasure of reading this study was the discovery that certain individuals were not just intolerable morons, but statistically intolerable morons From our perspective as pop science writers, there was an even exciting result Regardless of their predictive prowess, all these people still have jobs In fact, a lot of the worst predictors were the most prominent public figures c Q The big discontinuous leaps, like the laser and the computer, often depend on unrelated developments in different fields c Q Consider this If someone came to you two hundred years ago and asked how we might build a device to scan people s brain patterns, would your immediate response be, Well, first we need to trap some gas in a glass tube c Q The same difficulty holds for all the technologies in this book Whether we can build an elevator to space may depend on how good chemists get at arranging carbon atoms into little straws Whether we can make matter that assumes any shape we tell it to may depend on how well we understand termite behavior Whether we can build medical nanobots may depend on how well we understand origami Or maybe none of that stuff will end up mattering in the end There is nothing about history that necessarily had to be as it was c Q We now know that the ancient Greeks could create complex gear systems, but never constructed an advanced clock The ancient Alexandrians had a rudimentary steam engine but never designed a train The ancient Egyptians invented the folding stool four thousand years ago, but never built an IKEA c Q There are also people who become cynical because they thought we d have fusion power or weekend trips to Venus by now c Q For all these chapters, we had to read a lot of technical books and papers and we had to talk to a lot of mildly crazy people Some were crazier than others, and generally they were our favorites c Q The road to Mars may be paved with small discounts c `FREE EBOOK ↹ Soonish: Ten Emerging Technologies That'll Improve and/or Ruin Everything ☔ The Instant New York Times Bestseller A Wall Street Journal Best Science Book Of The Year A Popular Science Best Science Book Of The Year From A Top Scientist And The Creator Of The Hugely Popular Web Comic Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, A Hilariously Illustrated Investigation Into Future Technologies From How To Fling A Ship Into Deep Space On The Cheap To D Organ PrintingWhat Will The World Of Tomorrow Be Like How Does Progress Happen And Why Do We Not Have A Lunar Colony Already What Is The Hold Up In This Smart And Funny Book, Celebrated Cartoonist Zach Weinersmith And Noted Researcher Dr Kelly Weinersmith Give Us A Snapshot Of What S Coming Next From Robot Swarms To Nuclear Fusion Powered Toasters By Weaving Their Own Research, Interviews With The Scientists Who Are Making These Advances Happen, And Zach S Trademark Comics, The Weinersmiths Investigate Why These Technologies Are Needed, How They Would Work, And What Is Standing In Their WayNew Technologies Are Almost Never The Work Of Isolated Geniuses With A Neat Idea A Given Future Technology May Need Any Number Of Intermediate Technologies To Develop First, And Many Of These Critical Advances May Appear To Be Irrelevant When They Are First Discovered The Journey To Progress Is Full Of Strange Detours And Blind Alleys That Tell Us So Much About The Human Mind And The March Of CivilizationTo This End, Soonish Investigates Ten Different Emerging Fields, From Programmable Matter To Augmented Reality, From Space Elevators To Robotic Construction, To Show Us The Amazing World We Will Have, You Know, SoonishSoonish Is The Perfect Gift For Science Lovers For The Holidays